Many ingenious lovely things are goneThat seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,Protected from the circle of the moonThat pitches common things about. There stoodAmid the ornamental bronze and stoneAn ancient image made of olive wood -And gone are Phidias' famous ivoriesAnd all the golden grasshoppers and bees.

We too had many pretty toys when young;A law indifferent to blame or praise,To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrongMelt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;Public opinion ripening for so longWe thought it would outlive all future days.O what fine thought we had because we thoughtThat the worst rogues and rascals had died out.

All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,And a great army but a showy thing;What matter that no cannon had been turnedInto a ploughshare? Parliament and kingThought that unless a little powder burnedThe trumpeters might burst with trumpetingAnd yet it lack all glory; and perchanceThe guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance.

Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmareRides upon sleep: a drunken soldieryCan leave the mother, murdered at her door,To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;The night can sweat with terror as beforeWe pieced our thoughts into philosophy,And planned to bring the world under a rule,Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.

He who can read the signs nor sink unmannedInto the half-deceit of some intoxicantFrom shallow wits; who knows no work can stand,Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spentOn master-work of intellect or hand,No honour leave its mighty monument,Has but one comfort left: all triumph wouldBut break upon his ghostly solitude.

But is there any comfort to be found?Man is in love and loves what vanishes,What more is there to say? That country roundNone dared admit, if such a thought were his,Incendiary or bigot could be foundTo burn that stump on the Acropolis,Or break in bits the famous ivoriesOr traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.

"To love that which is infinite is to feel joy which is free from all sorrow."

Spinoza's "Infinite" is so both in space and time. Spinoza's love is thus boundless and unending; the Universe itself, viewed by him as all there is and god.

Yeats is troubled and distraught, having fallen into the trap of loving what is transient. Spinoza, the "god-intoxicated" atheist, ostracized by his own people for the sacrilege of false god, lives a life of quiet peace and tranquility, rejecting professorial appointment, and insisting only upon an earned modest accommodation, grinding glass and making lenses, in order to help others see.